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Critical Realism: An Introduction to Roy Bhaskar's Philosophy

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As someone interested in philosophy in general I found this book excellent in many ways. It presents a very detailed explanation of the philosophy of "critical realism" and gives the reader a deep insight into the inner workings of the mind and thought of Bhaskar. I am someone who can't bind themselves to a philosophy but this one is the closest I have come to accepting as a matter of my own natural biases. Therefore, I found this book engaging, well written and a deep coverage of the area. The highlight of the book is the way in which Collier constantly brings you into the deeper aspects of Bhaskars work then provides a balanced critique of the philosophy. I found this excellent for a text because it shows the reader that the critical realist thought is not without flaws and requires a true reflective mind to even begin to capture it. If you want a good introduction into critical realism this is the place to start. IT ROCKS!

I am in total agreement with the previous review of this book. This is a fantastic introduction to the philosophy of Roy Bhaskar and his version of critical realism. The book does not require any previous knowledge of Roy Bhaskar's philosophy on the part of the reader (though it would probably help to be at least familiar with some of the major debates in the philosophy of science). Rather than simply repeating what the previous reviewer has written I thought I would provide a slightly more detailed summary of Roy Bhaskar's philosophy of science and his critical theory as presented in this book for anyone who is interested. And if you are not interested...well...let's just hope we never meet in any dark alleys...

I will divide my review up into topics.

ONTOLOGY

Unlike many philosophers of science Roy Bhaskar is very interested in ontological questions - specifically, Bhaskar attempts to determine what the world must be like in order for experimental science to be possible and necessary. Roy Bhaskar is not interested in the ontological implications of specific scientific theories (relativity theory, quantum mechanics, etc.) but in the ontological implications of the practice of experimental science itself. Basically, Bhaskar is attempting to provide a transcendental argument similar to the transcendental arguments put forward by Immanuel Kant - i.e. given that experimental science is a fact, and given that it provides genuine knowledge of the world, what must the world be like?

Bhaskar reaches two important ontological conclusions about the nature of reality based on the possibility and necessity of experimental science.

First, Bhaskar believes that there are three distinct ontological dimensions to reality which he terms the dimension of the real (Dr) the dimension of the actual (Da) and the dimension of the empirical (De). The dimension of the real includes all the entities in the world along with their structures and tendencies (or causal powers); the dimension of the actual is the actual history of the world and the interactions between the basic entities (in which some causal powers are expressed while some remain unexpressed); and the dimension of the empirical is the dimension of what is consciously experienced. Bhaskar believes the following relations hold between the three dimensions: (Dr) will be greater than or equal to (Da) which will be greater than or equal to (De). This is because there are unrealized tendencies in the real and there are realized tendencies which are unobserved in the actual.

Second, Bhaskar believes that the world must be stratified and open since otherwise it would not be possible to explain why some mechanisms are unexpressed. As Collier writes, "Nature is neither a closed system nor just one thing after another, it is a multiplicity of mechanisms jointly producing courses of events. So the course of events is in principle explicable, but not in terms of any one science" (pg46). Bhaskar is, therefore, opposed to any form of reductionism which would attempt to reduce what Bhaskar believes are irreducible levels of reality to a single level (the biological to the physical - the cultural to the psychological, etc.) though the levels do interact with each other.

A few examples might help explain what Bhaskar means. Physics finds in the world four fundamental forces (gravitation, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces). These forces underlie the more complex forms that emerge from them but, Bhaskar argues, in order to give a complete picture even of the purely physical world physical laws and forces are not enough. In order to explain, for example, "the proliferation of brightly colored objects (flowers, colorful birds, etc.) at a certain stage of natural history we have to appeal to the laws of natural selection" (pg111). The principle of natural selection cannot be reduced to physics and yet, it is necessary to explain the appearance of the physical world around us (similarly, in order to explain the presence of ancient temples in the physical world it would be necessary to appeal to the psychological and sociological levels of explanation since physical laws operating on their own will never construct a temple).

Another example is drawn from linguistics and sociology. There is a law relating to linguistic change which argues that "speakers tend to prefer combinations of sounds that are easy to articulate" (pg211). In a great deal of philosophy of science laws are conceived to be deductive-nomological, or universal statements, from which particular predictions can be deduced. In order to refute a universal statement a single negative instance is all that is required (Popper's falsification theory). The problem with this law relating to linguistic change (and any law of linguistic change) is that there are always going to be many counter-examples. One escape would be to turn these laws into probabilistic laws, but since probabilistic laws cannot be falsified they are not really explanations (pg211). This whole problematic assumes, mistakenly Bhaskar would argue, that linguistics is a closed system and that constant conjunction is a necessary condition when formulating universal laws. If we admit that linguistics is an open system, however, then counter-examples do not necessarily refute the universal law (experimental science is able to construct closed systems through the experimental method in order to isolate mechanisms but this is impossible in theories of linguistic change). Collier points to a counter-example in British English in which there has been a tendency to pronounce every letter of a word which seems to contradict this more universal law. Collier offers one possible explanation: perhaps the petty bourgeoisie favor 'spelling pronunciation' and other classes tend to copy their speech (pg211). Whether this particular explanation is the right one or not is unimportant. What this example illustrates is that a genuine tendency in one system (the tendency in linguistic change to move towards easily articulable sounds) can be unexpressed due to interference from tendencies in another system (in this case sociological tendencies).

EPISTEMOLOGY

Bhaskar's epistemology is based on his separation of what he calls the transitive dimension from what he calls the intransitive dimension. The transitive dimension is the sum total of all of our knowledge at a given point in time (it is similar in some ways to Kuhn's paradigms I believe). The intransitive dimension is the object of that knowledge, or, the mechanisms which are independent of all knowledge but which knowledge attempts to know. Bhaskar believes the assumption of an intransitive dimension is necessary to explain theory change (contra Kuhn). There is an independent reality which knowledge is attempting to grasp and which different theories (however divergent they may be) are all aiming at. If there were no intransitive dimension then different theories would not really be aiming at the same reality and there would be no reason to prefer one over any other (if Aristotelian science and Galilean science were not aiming at the same physical world, despite the difference in their basic concepts, then we would have no reason to prefer one over the other, or to replace one with the other, since they would not even be in conflict with each other). We never really have direct access to the intransitive dimension except through the mediation of the transitive dimension (Kuhn is right about that) but the assumption of the intransitive dimension is absolutely necessary to science in Bhaskar's opinion.

Bhaskar is also fairly critical of strict empiricists in epistemology (and in this he would side with Kuhn I believe). The positive contribution of empiricism was that it was able to purge us of many of the inheritances of tradition, custom, ancient texts, etc. which were standing in the way of new knowledge and got us to look freshly at the world again. Empiricist epistemology makes a mistake, however, when it goes to the extreme of believing that human beings are (or should be) 'blank slates' or that it is possible to provide a purely individual, empirical foundation to the theories of science.

The professional scientist does not construct scientific theories by beginning from individual sense perception alone. Philosophy of science falls into insoluble problems when it attempts to ground general scientific theories purely in individual sense perception (Hume's problem of induction is one example). Scientists inherit a tradition of scientific thought and theories which they then transform. This inheritance is essential (we do not begin from scratch after every generation). As Collier writes, "Scientific training is to the 'subjective aspect' of scientific work what experiment is to the 'objective aspect'. It produces suitable 'knowing subjects'...Hence, to become a scientifically 'knowing subject' is to acquire a specific set of ideas, techniques and skills; little can be said about 'knowing subjects' at any abstract, historically unspecific level, after the manner of traditional epistemology...our minds are formed by historically specific societies, and that is the only way they can be formed at all" (pg54). Bhaskar sees the enterprise of science as a production of new knowledge by using previous knowledge as material rather than as an attempt to found universal laws on individual sense perceptions.

SOCIAL CRITIQUE

Roy Bhaskar's ideas about the relations between scientific realism and social critique (or efforts at human emancipation) are, in my opinion, some of his most interesting ideas. This review is already quite long so I will try to be as brief as possible in my descriptions. Basically Bhaskar is able to offer what I think is one of the most sophisticated and convincing arguments against the fact/value dichotomy that I have ever read. To do it justice would require more space than an amazon review (Bhaskar devoted at least one whole book to the topic entitled Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation) but I will do my best to provide an intelligible summary.

Collier asks us to consider four factual statements about the events that took place in Nazi Germany (I believe this part comes from Isaiah Berlin): 'the country was depopulated', 'millions of people died', 'millions of people were killed', 'millions of people were massacred'. All of these statements are true in their own way. But which is the most accurate description of what happened in Nazi Germany? Obviously the fourth statement is, in Andrew Collier's words, "the most precise and accurate" (pg178). But, as Collier also points out, it is also the most evaluative and "the evaluative force arises entirely out of the factual content" (pg178). Simply stating the truth as precisely as possible in this case constitutes a critique. There is no need to bring in values from outside (there is no pure fact which then has to be evaluated, the statement of the fact is already an evaluation), or, as Collier writes, "It is not that by bringing values into the discourse one makes it a fuller statement of the truth, but that by making a fuller statement of the truth one implies more values" (pg178).

This conclusion, Bhaskar believes is quite general. Science, simply by describing a society as accurately and as truthfully as possible, can imply an evaluative critique of that society. Science is able to reveal "human needs, their frustration, and the relation of those needs and that frustration to the social structure" (pg182). Social science, on its own, generates practical emancipatory projects by, "showing there to be (a) a need (b) some obstacle preventing its satisfaction (c) some means of removing this obstacle. This is not a matter of mere technical imperatives, coming into play only if you want the projected good; given that a social science can tell us not only about the means of satisfaction but also about the need itself, it may ground assertoric imperatives, i.e. since you need this, remove that obstacle thus" (pg183). Personally, I think that biology, psychology, economics, sociology and even philosophy (which admittedly is not a science) are capable of providing objective knowledge about objective human needs and the conditions necessary for true and genuine human happiness and fulfillment (contra all those who view values as purely subjective). To the degree that these needs are not met, and the conditions for a genuinely happy life are not met, in a given society these disciplines will imply a critique of that society simply in stating the truth.

There have been plenty of philosophers who have attempted to work out new and improved versions of Marx's critical theory after the Soviet Union revealed the limitations of a critical theory which focused solely or primarily on the existence of markets (the abolition of markets did not lead to the general human emancipation that had been promised but, rather, to a more intense and violent form of slavery). Theodor Adorno, Herbert Marcuse, Jurgen Habermas (among many others) all attempted to work out new critical theories each based on a different foundation (the non-identity between concept and object, surplus repression, distorted communication, etc.). Bhaskar's critical theory (if one can call it that) seems to me to be one of the most powerful for two reasons: 1) it is grounded in science (the other critical theorists tended to have rather ambivalent attitudes towards science, often viewing it as a bourgeois attempt to surround its pronouncements, especially its pronouncements about the necessity of capitalism being grounded in an ahistorical human nature, with an undeserved aura of objectivity), and 2) a mere statement of the truth in as precise a form as possible is enough in Bhaskar's theory to constitute a critique without having to bring in any extraneous notions (non-identity, surplus repression, distorted communication, etc.). For these reasons I really do believe Bhaskar's philosophy provides one of the most powerful critical theories in the history of philosophy (although I am not really sure whether Bhaskar would refer to his philosophy as a critical theory or not).

All in all this is a really excellent introduction to a truly fascinating thinker and I would give it my very highest recommendation!

-Brian